Jack Whyte - The Sorcer part 2 - Metamorphosis

"Are you indecisive?"

He looked at me, that wry half smile still in place. "No, but I'm young and too recently come to power. Too many interests, longer set than mine, take precedence."

"Then you must change that."

"I know that. What I don't know is how."

I grinned at him. "Would you like to hear my idea now? It's still a bit thin, but we might be able to expand it, working together."

"I think I might, now," he said, nodding his head. "Because I've just had an idea of my own."

"Good. No more mead, for now. Come, walk with me and meet some of my men while I show you how a cavalry encampment operates."

FOUR

Our ideas melded together very quickly, and Nero Niger threw himself wholeheartedly into the easy relationship that I had sensed might be possible between us. We had both had the same idea: that our presence in his territory, properly used, might convince his people of the need to improve their defences immediately. But our discussions went much further than that, towards an idea that made the lesson we would deliver to his people seem almost inconsequential by comparison.

As is so often the case with matters of real significance, the constituent parts came together very gradually at first, but then they fused together at the end in a crescendo of insights and explosive recognition. I can clearly recall being genuinely surprised to discover, towards the end of our deliberations, that my problem with respect to the people in the lands beyond Camulod concerned nothing less than the goals of the original Colony founded by Caius Britannicus and Publius Varrus—adaptation and survival in the face of the unthinkable. My unexpected and intense involvement with Nero Niger and his Appius clan over the course of the ensuing few weeks provided the different perspective that stripped the shutters from my mind and allowed me to see the path I had been unaware of to so long.

I have resisted the temptation to describe what happened in those weeks as a beginning, because that would be inaccurate—the true beginnings had come decades earlier. Publius Varrus had witnessed the beginning of our Colony on his wedding night, before the birth of my own mother, and had described it as a birthing, the emergence of potential independence and self sufficiency in Britain. The Roman evacuations at the start of the new century had been another beginning: the beginning of vulnerability and uncertainty in what had been, for hundreds of years, a strong and vibrant outpost of the Empire; the beginning of the invasions that now threatened the very existence of the people who for centuries had called this country home. What happened during those few weeks with Nero Niger was more akin to the start of a new phase of progress.

The end of the first phase, I came to realize long afterward, had been initiated when the first, hundred plus strong detachment of Camulodian cavalry had been dispatched in support of Dergyll ap Griffyd's war in Cambria, years earlier. That force had remained in the field for nigh on two years, engaging in very little warfare and living in encampments the entire time. Because their movements had been constant and ranged the length and breadth of southern Cambria, it would never have occurred to anyone concerned to think of those troopers as garrison troops, but that is precisely what they were, although their role had been ambassadorial rather than purely military: a mobile, reinforcing presence, the potential force of which had kept the enemy from descending from the hills before Dergyll could crush them. That expedition, marking the first time a self sufficient corps of our troopers had sustained itself away from home, operating independently of Camulod, was a test of our Colony's ability to shape the events governing other, friendly groups.

Similarly, the establishment of a garrison in Mediobogdum, regularly supplied with reinforcements, replacement personnel, weapons, and horses from Camulod, had demonstrated that the Colony was now strong enough to be able to maintain its own forces plus another army, small as it might be, hundreds of miles distant, without major inconvenience. That we were now on our way home, having abandoned our briefly held outpost in the far northwest, was no reflection on the success of the garrison. What was important, what really mattered most, was that we had lived there for more than half a decade, and that the garrison we had installed there during that time had functioned with complete success, integrating itself seamlessly with the local inhabitants, coexisting with diem in harmony and to mutual benefit. Logic dictated, therefore, that a Camulodian garrison could conceivably flourish anywhere in Britain.

It was the seed of that realization that prompted me to consider the dilemma of the Appius clan and their small army and too small walls. And out of my solution to that dilemma, simple as it was, came progress.

We had decided, by the end of that first night, that Nero would return home the following day and say nothing of his encounter with us. The day after that, we would stage a mock attack on his holdings, with the object of frightening his people badly enough to make them see that, next time, such an attack might be real, and they had better be prepared. The plan, simple enough on the surface, required a full strategy session, attended by every officer we had, followed by a briefing of our entire complement. The last thing any of us wanted was for a single drop of blood to be spilled in the course of this demonstration. On the following morning, therefore, ! convened the officers' session, and then followed it up with a briefing to our troopers, outlining the objectives of the exercise, from their viewpoint, and introducing them in the process to Nero Niger.

Nero left to return home as soon as the assembly had been dismissed, and Dedalus and I accompanied him to the outskirts of our camp. On the way back, Dedalus was unusually quiet, and I asked him what was on his mind. He walked on for a few paces without answering, then looked up at me from beneath lowered brows.

"You want this make believe raid to work, don't you? I

can see that, but I don't like it. It's as dangerous as a sharp toothed whore. Why run the risk of having any of these know nothings panic and let fly with a lucky arrow or two and do us damage before we can reveal that it's all just mummery, an exercise in preparedness? One of our men dead ? would be too high a price to pay, it seems to me, for whatever might be achieved here. What does it matter if they're prepared or unprepared? There's not enough of them to makea difference either way. A hundred men they have? That's not a garrison, it's a holding force, and a skeletal one at that. "

I made no effort to respond until we had regained the centre of the camp, then I nodded towards the headquarters tent and suggested we talk in there. He followed me wordlessly and settled into the only comfortable chair, at the table assigned to the Officer of the Watch. He sat back and Ifolded his arms across his chest, hooking his fingers into the armholes of his cuirass, clearly waiting for me to speak. Dedalus possessed the sharpest tongue, and perhaps the sharpest wits, of all of us. He had impressed me so many times in the past with his insight and his ability to cut right to the heart of troublesome things that I had come to expect nothing less of him. I perched on the edge of the table in front of him. .

"You're right, Ded," I conceded. "It is dangerous. But I've considered the risk, and I think it will be worthwhile. If we can convince these people to build stronger defences, then we'll have created an island of strength in this region. I agree that a hundred men is not a garrison, but it could be the start of one. Camulod once had no more than a hundred trained men under arms, and look at our strength today."